


Waiting For You

by Jo (jmathieson)



Series: Tangents and Intersections ~ Kink Bingo 2013 [62]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bathing/Washing, Community: kink_bingo, Established Relationship, Fix-It, M/M, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Procedures, Post-Avengers (2012), Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-20
Updated: 2013-09-20
Packaged: 2017-12-27 03:58:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jmathieson/pseuds/Jo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Manhattan, Fury comes to find Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For You

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Bingo Round Six (2013) ~ Washing/Cleaning

Nick Fury found them eating shawarma. 

"Barton, can I have a word?" Had Clint been in any state to actually think, he would have realized that Fury's tone was soft and careful, but Clint wasn't in any state to do much except keep breathing in and out. He was eating mechanically because they had just been in a battle and Nat had put food in front of him. He did notice, however, that the rest of the team (and yeah, he thought of them as a team) tensed when Fury spoke, and Tony even moved as if to get out of his chair.

"I know none of you are very happy with me at the moment, but it is important that I speak to Specialist Barton. Please," Fury said using his soft tone again, and this time it got through, "Clint, it's about Phil."

Phil was dead. Phil was dead. Phil was dead.

The words rang through him like a gong.

Of course, he was Phil's legal whatchamacallit. They had signed papers, when they bought the house. Fury would need him to... to make decisions about... about Phil's body. He could do that. It was the last thing he could do for Phil, so he could do it, even if his heart was crumbling into a million pieces, he could do it.

"It's OK," Clint said, heaving himself out of the chair. "Nat, explain to them," he jerked his head to indicate the rest of the team, "about... about Phil and me." It didn't matter now, who knew that Phil was gay. Who knew that they had been together. Phil was dead. Phil was dead. Phil was dead.

Fury had a car waiting. They didn't speak on the way back to base, which was fine, because Clint didn't feel much like talking. The SHIELD New York City base had miraculously escaped much damage, and there seemed to be an emergency supply distribution centre set up in one of the main lobbies. 

Clint didn't blink when Fury led him towards the medical wing, that's where the morgue was, obviously, though Clint had never actually been there before. They went through one set of doors and then another, and then a third marked "Authorized Personnel Only." 

Nick led him to a window in a wall that looked into... an operating theater. There were two doctors and three nurses and lying on the table, covered in green hospital sheets, with a tube in his throat and attached to a dozen machines, was Phil. 

"He's been on the table for six hours. It's still touch-and-go. There's no point in telling the others until we know one way or the other, but you have the right..." Fury stopped, then "I'm sorry Clint. They needed a push. I was out of options."

Hope and fear started to claw their way through the numbness and despair as Clint stared through the window.

"It's what he would have wanted you to do." Clint said, because it was true.

"I hope so. He's one of the strongest men I've ever known. If anyone can make it, he can."

"Yeah." Clint was quiet for a while, watching the surgeons work and the machines blink. "We were... we were talking about getting married."

If Clint had been looking, he would have seen Nick Fury close his eye, and a pained expression cross his face.

Fury stood with him for a long time, and then left silently. Clint stood by the window until the operation finished, three hours later. He sat in a chair outside the recovery room for the next six, and then Fury re-appeared to tell the doctors and nurses that Clint was Phil's medical proxy, and had the right to be with him at all times. Phil was in a medically induced coma, and would be for days.

"Do you want me to tell them he's alive?" Fury asked

"Nat. Tell Nat. She... she loves him too, in her own way. And Jasper. The others, wait until we know, I guess." Until they knew if Phil had brain damage, if he would ever be himself again. If... if.... if...

Nat brought him food and clothes, and came by regularly to check on him.

Jasper appeared and organized a cot in Phil's hospital room for him, and sat with him a while.

Nick came at irregular intervals and stood. Word trickled out to the other Avengers (Clint suspected that Nat had told Pepper, and Jasper had told Cap) and one by one they came.

"So, you and Agent," said Tony Stark, and then he saw the expression on Clint's face and went uncharacteristically silent.

Bruce brought him books. "I thought you might want to read to him."

Cap said, "Tony said something about a cellist?"

"It's complicated." Clint sighed, not wanting to try to explain gender politics to a soldier from the 1940s.

"Most things are," had been Cap's reply.

Clint got to know the doctors and the nurses. The doctors were OK, checking things, humming over the readouts on the machines, but the nurses seemed to actually care. Seemed to treat Phil as if he was still a person, and not just a fascinating surgical experiment. Clint liked the nurses. They were nice to him, they explained what they were doing and why, they said encouraging things about the readouts on the machines, and most importantly, they let him help.

After spending two days feeling completely helpless, just watching Phil lying there, machines breathing for him, the nurses started to let him help. Tiny little things, like holding the new IV bag while they changed the out old one, handing them new sheets when they changed the bed, cutting pieces of medical tape for them when they changed the dressings over the wounds, but it made him feel like he was helping, like he was doing something. 

On the fourth day, a nurse named Julie rolled in the little cart they used to give Phil his bed-bath. The first time that had happened, three days ago, was the only time Clint had come close to leaving Phil's room. The bed-bath got to him in a way that nothing else had. The IVs and drains and tubes and monitors didn't bother him. He and Phil had both spent enough time in Medical that he was used to all that equipment. The catheter didn't bother him either. He'd had one. They sucked, but what could you do? When they turned Phil, four times a day, to prevent bedsores, that was hard. It hit home that Phil wasn't just asleep, he was in a coma. But turning him only took a couple of minutes.

The bed-bath was a long, drawn out affair, and at first it bothered him, watching Phil's body being washed like an inanimate object. But the nurses were so good, so gentle and careful and respectful that Clint came to terms with it quickly, and just sat quietly in his chair and watched.

Today, Julie wheeled the little cart in and started to get ready to give Phil his bed-bath. Then she looked at him.

"Specialist Barton?"

"Clint, please, call me Clint. I'm... ah... I'm gonna be here a while."

"Clint, you and Agent Coulson are... partners?"

That was another thing he liked about the nurses, they all talked about Phil, and his relationship to Phil, in the present tense.

"Yes."

"Would you like to do this?"

"What?"

"Would you like to give him his bath? You've watched me do it three days in a row, you know what to do. It would be good for him, to feel your familiar touch."

The nurses had encouraged him to talk to Phil, too. At first he'd felt stupid, but they explained that people in comas could often hear what was going on around them, and that Phil would appreciate hearing his voice, it would reassure him, and help him heal. So Clint had narrated the entire battle to him, in as much detail as he could remember, then in the dark of night, he had confessed everything that Loki had made him do, whispering it all into Phil's ear.

"I... if you think I'll do it right."

"As long as you're gentle, you can't really get it wrong. Here,"

And Clint had let her encourage him to stand by Phil's bedside.

"You don't need gloves, just wash your hands well, it's better if he feels you touching him. That's good. Now, here's the warm water, and the basin, and the soap, and the washcloths. You've watched me do this, start at the bottom, and work towards the top. Talk to him while you do it. I'll be outside if you need me." She smiled at Clint, and left the room.

"Hey Phil," Clint said, picking up a washcloth, soaking in the basin of warm water, and wringing it out. "So, the nurse handed over bed-bath duty to me today. Her name's Julie, by the way, and she's really nice. All the nurses are really nice, but I've told you that before, I'm pretty sure. Anyway, I'm gonna give this a try."

Clint folded back the blanket and sheet to uncover Phil's feet, and started with his left foot, picking it up and washing the sole, then between the toes, then the top. He rinsed the washcloth, then did the ankle, and started up Phil's calf.

"Julie said I should talk to you while I'm doing this, but I'm not quite sure what to say, to be honest," Clint got to Phil's knee and stopped, rinsed the washcloth again, and went back to the other foot. He was working his way up Phil's other calf when his fingers brushed a familiar pucker in the skin.

"Right, this is the calf you got shot in, isn't it? You told me you got shot, and that it was while you were in the army, but you never told me exactly what happened. I'm gonna ask Jasper about it, next time he comes around. I'm sure he'll tell me, or he'll make something up if he doesn't actually know."

Clint rinsed the washcloth again, and started on Phil's right thigh. It was picking up Phil's thigh to move it out a little, so that he could get in between his legs, that nearly broke Clint. Phil's leg was heavy and lax in a way that was so completely different from every other time Clint had ever touched it. He bit his lip, and was close to tears. Only a lifetime of habit stopped them from spilling down his cheeks. Instead he swallowed around the lump in his throat, and started to talk, his voice rough and broken at first, but then getting stronger.

"Everyone's been in to see you, Phil. Nat, Jasper, Fury, Tony Stark, Dr. Banner, even Cap. You're probably going to be horribly jealous when you wake up and hear me calling him 'Cap,' aren't you? I don't feel right calling him 'Steve' though, and 'Captain Rogers' sounds too formal, so 'Cap' it is. He's sorry he didn't get to sign your cards, but I guess you need new ones now anyway, so..."

Clint was working his way up Phil's other thigh, carefully avoided the bandage over the incision where the doctors had taken a vein graft, and into the crease of his groin. He rinsed the washcloth again, and started, gently and carefully, to clean Phil's balls and dick. He knew from experience how uncomfortable catheters were, so even though he was pretty sure Phil couldn't feel anything, he was as delicate as he could be.

He rubbed the washcloth through the fuzz of hair at Phil's groin, and then dropped it into a laundry bag and started with a fresh one. 

"I remember this scar..." Clint started to talk again, as he washed Phil's left hip, and continued up his belly, talking all the while about past missions, injuries they had both received, times they had spent together. 

Clint picked up Phil's left hand and washed his fingers, pausing at the memory of a gold ring, from a mission that seemed at once only a few days ago and very far in the past. 

"I love you Phil," Clint said, holding his hand. "And I still want to marry you, if..." If... if... if... Clint washed Phil's hand, and his arm. He was gentle and careful as he got close to the thick bandage over the wound, not to get the gauze or the tape wet. He walked around to the other side of the bed to do Phil's right hand, and arm. 

He changed washcloths again and scrubbed very lightly at Phil's chest, making his light fuzzy chest hair stand up and curl. Clint stopped and ran his fingers through it, the way he often did after Phil got out of the shower, or when they were curled up in bed together at night... 

"Please be OK, Phil. Please get better and come home and... please."

Clint slid his hand up to Phil's face, cupped his jaw, stroked his cheek. There were tubes in his nose and throat, and he was pale and stubbly, but he was alive, and he had a chance. 

"I know you can do it, Phil. I know you can."

Clint got a clean cloth again, and carefully wiped Phil's face and neck.

"There we go. All done. Maybe I should ask Nat to swing by the house and pick up your electric razor. You'll be pissed at me if I let you wake up with a week's worth of stubble, won't you?"

Clint tidied up the wash cart and parked it by the door, then sat back down in his chair by Phil's bed and laced his fingers through Phil's.

"I'm here Phil. I'm right here, waiting for you."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks always to my excellent editors t! and Shazrolane.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at: [Queen of Wands](http://jmathieson-fic.tumblr.com/)


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